Well, this is unexpected. The iPhone 4G saga just got a whole lot crazier - dare I say it, a whole lot more ridiculous. Have you ever reported anything like a phone or something similarly small stolen to the police? What was their reaction? Did you ever get the device back? Did they send an army of officers to get your device back? No? Odd. They raided Jason Chen's house, and took four computers and two servers. Update: And thus our true colours reveal. "The raid that San Mateo area cops conducted last week on the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen came at the behest of a special multi-agency task force that was commissioned to work with the computer industry to tackle high-tech crimes. And Apple Inc. sits on the task force's steering committee." Update II: According to TechCrunch, the investigation has been put on hold while the DA ponders Gizmodo's shield defence. Update III: Some legal insight from a constitutional law and first amendment expert and a law professor. The gist? The DA has said no one has been charged with anything here, making this just an investigation - however, this makes the search and seizing of material worse. "If the police are literally just gathering information, with no suspect targeted yet, then a subpoena against a journalist would have probably been smarter than a search warranted that resulted in the front door of Chen's home being bashed in."

If the original person who "found" the phone contacted Apple and tried to return the phone w/o blackmail, and you have proof of that, I'd like to see it. Did he make a police report? Same question for Chen. If not, it's probably a felony and search warrants are defendable. I know I wouldn't pay $5,000 for a phone just to give it back to it's owner.

Also, we probably don't have all of the evidence, so everyone should chill. We should still be in the engage brain phase people.

http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone?skyline=t... soooooooo The guy who took posession of the phone, clearly tried to operate the phone, take pictures, check facebook etc. aka drive the car. I know if I 'found' a company car, lets say a city vehicle, and the first couple of people I called at the city put in a work order. I wouldn't sell the car. I'd talk to cops first, or a lawyer. Gizmodo buying a known 'missing' fleet vehicle so they could dissect it, then give it back would be a felony right? They didn't pay 5,000 to return an iphone, they paid 5,000 to dissect it.

I have a similar attitude to you in that I don't think we can come to any absolute conclusions yet, and I can't but help thinking that that $5,000 number is awfully ironic, but I do think that your last argument has a gap in it. Or more accurately, I answer your stated query with an "I don't think so...", since you seem to take for granted that that should be a felony. Since the damage of the deconstruction (apart from information dissemination, which is ultimately not an issue once the phone is out in public) can be undone with money, I think it's a civil matter.

I have a similar attitude to you in that I don't think we can come to any absolute conclusions yet, and I can't but help thinking that that $5,000 number is awfully ironic, but I do think that your last argument has a gap in it. Or more accurately, I answer your stated query with an "I don't think so...", since you seem to take for granted that that should be a felony. Since the damage of the deconstruction (apart from information dissemination, which is ultimately not an issue once the phone is out in public) can be undone with money, I think it's a civil matter.

Well I'd argue the damage at least 5,000. We'd have to work based on the value of the information at the time the act was commited I think. Gizmodo set the street value at 5 grand. Ironic.